Archive for “October, 2018”

A Bigfoot sighting can apparently change your life and even lead to obsession. Thousands of people claim to have laid eyes on Sasquatch over the past century and Laura’s spoken to dozens of them—compelling stories that will set your hair on end. If they didn’t see Bigfoot, what did they see?

Wild Thing fans! We ran into a production issue and have to delay the release of episode 4 “Eyewitness” by a week. Our apologies. But while there’s no full episode today, you can listen to a little preview of what’s to come.

Bob Gimlin is half of the famous duo that was there that day in 1967, when the Patterson-Gimlin film was shot. Despite years of ridicule and harassment, he stands by his story. Now, fifty years after that fateful day, he sits down to tell us about what happened and the fallout he experienced.

Let’s look at the evidence. There are footprints and sounds, grainy pictures, and the notorious Patterson-Gimlin film—that shaky 1967 video of a big, hairy beast striding through the forest. But how well does it hold up? We hear from a variety of people—the skeptics and the certain—who make their case for what evidence is out there. How much of it stands up to scrutiny?

Just what is Bigfoot? Descendant of ancient apes? Close human ancestor? Evolution might hold the answer to this question. Homo sapiens may rule the planet now but once upon a time, we weren’t the only hominid creatures walking around. Who’s to say that Bigfoot wasn’t—and still isn’t—among us? We talk to evolution experts and anthropologists, including Ian Tattersall, curator at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

Laura Krantz is a veteran public radio editor and producer. So how did she end up in the wilds of the Pacific Northwest, eyeballing some giant ground nests… that might have been made by Bigfoot? You can place the blame squarely on the shoulders of a guy named Grover. He was a tenured professor of anthropology at Washington State University and one of world’s preeminent experts on Sasquatch. And it turns out that Grover is also Laura’s long-lost cousin. How could she not do a story about this guy?

For more than a year, Laura Krantz searched for Sasquatches and the people who love them. She tromped through the Pacific Northwest looking for Bigfoot nests, frequented Sasquatch-enthusiast chat rooms, and talked to scientists about how DNA testing may be able to be used to help prove — or at least explain — the hairy fella’s existence.